Tate Britain has opened the first exhibition to explore the art, photography and fashion of the 1990s, a decade synonymous with possibility, optimism and an audacious spirit. The 90s: Art and Fashion explores this period’s surge of creative energy, shaped by its opportunities and challenges. Featuring nearly 70 artists, photographers and designers, from the Young British Artists (YBAs) to Alexander McQueen, the show spotlights the emergence of this generation of exciting and diverse artistic talent that reshaped Britain’s cultural identity. Drawing on curator Edward Enninful OBE’s experience of the decade, The 90s brings together over 100 photographs, paintings, sculptures and garments to re-evaluate one of the most transformative moments in British art.
Following the gritty economic uncertainty of the 1980s, the 1990s saw the emergence of a resourceful new generation of young talent in Britain. The exhibition opens by exploring their taste for imperfection and realness with a do-it-yourself attitude, presenting photography by Corinne Day, Nigel Shafran and Juergen Teller for influential publications including i-D and Dazed and Confused, who were at the forefront of defining a new ‘anti-fashion’ grunge style. The influence of print media is explored in work by Roshini Kempadoo and Eileen Perrier which expanded mainstream beauty notions at a time when Kate Moss wearing Liza Bruce’s sheer slip dress captured tabloid interest. Real people became artists’ muses, as reflected in the work of Barbara Walker, Jenny Saville and Gillian Wearing, while the likes of Tracey Emin, Sam Taylor‑Johnson and Sarah Lucas captivated the public with their anarchic spirit and frank work tackling agency, identity and class.
The decade’s youthful attitude is captured in film and photography engaged with nightlife and subculture; from Mark Leckey’s 1999 film Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore to images documenting young people at iconic club nights across the UK including the Haçienda in Manchester and Bagley’s in London. The birth of acid house is documented by Dave Swindells, Peter J Walsh and Tony Davis; Normski, Eddie Otchere and Ewen Spencer follow the rise of jungle, hip-hop and drum and bass scenes; and joyful queer club nights are captured by Poulomi Desai, Stuart Linden Rhodes and Jon Shard. Raves and free parties photographed by Seana Gavin and Vinca Peterson illustrate a hedonistic counterculture fuelled by flyers and payphones, whilst Boy Racers are documented in Elaine Constantine’s series, Burn up Northampton.
The exhibition explores the decade’s conceptual movements, from opulent and macabre body horror to sleek and uncanny minimalism. Artists such as Hamad Butt responded to the ongoing impact of the AIDS crisis, and Helen Chadwick, Jake and Dinos Chapman and Cathy de Monchaux played with a gothic interest in decay and revulsion. Cerith Wyn Evans, Rachel Whiteread and Gary Hume experimented with parred back forms whilst Damien Hirst took this conceptual approach further, removing the artist’s hand altogether with fabricated formaldehyde filled sculptures, the antithesis to low-fi grunge. The exhibition also explores the emergence of visionary designers who blurred the lines between art and fashion spectacularly, from Alexander McQueen’s provocative, dramatic and sometimes nightmarish presentations to Hussein Chalayan’s design-led clothing inspired by everyday objects. In photography, Nick Knight, David Sims and Craig McDean embraced starker, more conceptually driven imagery, whilst Wolfgang Tillmans reflected on the promise of past and future technology with Concorde Grid 1997, capturing the dual feelings of optimism and anxiety induced by the impending millennium.
As the influence of ‘Cool Britannia’, grew, many artists used their work to draw attention to those largely excluded from this narrative. In the exhibition, Steve McQueen’s first major film Bear 1993, a cinematic portrayal of an intimate faceoff between two men, is joined by Chris Ofili’s Turner Prize-winning painting No Woman, No Cry 1998, a poignant tribute to Doreen and Stephen Lawrence, and video by Keith Piper reflecting on sport and national identity. Tailoring by Ozwald Boateng, runway footage of Joe Casely-Hayford’s presentations, and fashion photography by Koto Bolofo celebrates the work of Black British designers, with street style spotlighted through a collaboration between Jason Evans and Simon Foxton.
The exhibition ends with artists and designers who, at the close of the 20th century, reckoned with Britain’s past and dealt with questions of its future. Yinka Shonibare and Maud Sulter drew from European art history and dandyism to ask questions of diversity and representation, whilst designers such as Vivienne Westwood and John Galliano borrowed across history and cultures, interrogating style, class and national mythology with anachronistic fashion collections. Together, this closing room reflects on the 90s as a moment poised between past and future, allowing audiences to rethink our picture of the art of the decade.
